When thinking of Kansas, who doesn’t think "thrilling"? Miles and miles of flat terrain. Wheat fields as far as the eye can see. College basketball. Thrilling hardly begins to describe life in Kansas.

Believe it or not, Kansas just became even more thrilling. A water park there recently opened the world’s largest waterslide.

I’m sure a lot of people’s bucket lists were suddenly increased by one item.

The waterslide is called Verruckt, which is German for insane and pronounced using a terrible, Hogan’s Heroes-type accent. Verruckt also has the distinction of being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the shortest word in the German language.

Surprisingly, Volkswagen has yet to use Verruckt as a car name. Seems like a natural along with Touareg and Passat. "I’ll drive, everyone get inside my Verruckt." "Oh look, the 2015 Verruckts are out." "That guy in the Passat just cut me off, what a Verruckt."

Considering the waterslide’s name we need to ask: Is this new ride truly insane?

To find out first answer these questions: Is it insane to plunge 168 feet sitting inside nothing more than a modified, three-person food tray? Is it insane if the momentum from the first plunge is great enough to carry you up the ride’s five-story incline only to have you drop for a second time? Is it insane to end the ride in a pool of water where people with weaker stomachs recently finished theirs?

Finally, is it insane to take a vacation to Kansas?

Yes, all of those things would constitute extreme insanity, especially the part where Kansas is thought of as a tourist destination.

You are probably asking yourself, "Is a 168-foot drop really that insane? I can’t put that distance in perspective." To help, the article I read stated that the waterslide is as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Of course, they could be lying. There’s no way to verify the height of the Statue of Liberty, since there isn’t a doorframe tall enough to mark Lady Liberty’s height with a ruler.

Besides, comparing it to the height of something such as the Statue of Liberty is meaningless for most of us. It doesn’t actually help unless you routinely imagine what it would be like to jump off the statue’s crown and slide down her robes.

And if you routinely imagine that, it would be weird.

Waterslides, of course, have come a long way from when I was a kid. The only waterslides I was aware of growing up were the ones at my friend’s pools.

These were usually made of fiberglass and in the Arizona sun could heat up to a comfortable 900 degrees Fahrenheit. The good news was they were still cooler than the playground slides made of metal. Those actually caused severe burns just before they became so hot the slide melted into a metal blob.

Page 2 of 2 - But the best part of any poolside slide was how, when the humidity was just right, you could not slide down it. Instead you would stick, squeaking your way down inch by inch, using your arms and feet to force yourself along. After only a few short minutes you would reach the bottom, where you would have to hurl yourself into the water.

An experience almost as thrilling as Kansas.

But theme park waterslides have the advantage of using a constant stream of flowing water to help propel the riders. This, along with the massive height of the Verruckt, works because I noticed netting on the section of the giant slide where the rider is slung up the incline for the second drop.

Any ride that uses netting to keep riders from flying off must be thrilling. Even more thrilling than Kansas itself.